Chapter Three: Dinner With The Alpha

POV: Naya

I did not touch myself in the shower thinking about my best friend's father.

That was the lie I told the bathroom mirror, anyway.

The truth was messier. The truth was that I'd stood under scalding water for ten minutes, forehead against the tile, trying to wash off the feeling of that voice in my head. Mate. Not mine. Not a hallucination either. It had sounded like him.

My skin still hummed. My breasts felt heavy, sensitive, aching for a touch that wasn't mine.

Every drop of water felt like fingertips. I hated how badly I wanted them to be his.

I slid one hand over my stomach. Lower.

Just to take the edge off, I told myself. Just so I could sit through dinner without combusting.

I closed my eyes and let myself see him. The rolled sleeves. The veins in his forearms. The way he'd said my name, low and rough, like a man breaking a rule. My fingers moved between my thighs and my breath hitched. I bit my lip to trap the sound, cupped my own breast, pinched my nipple hard and imagined it was his hand instead. His mouth against my ear. Good girl.

"Zayden," I whispered.

"NAYA! Twenty minutes!"

Santana's fist pounded the door.

I nearly slipped on the tile. My heart slammed against my ribs, my face burned, and I slapped the faucet to cold, gasping as the water hit me.

"Coming!" I yelled. My voice cracked. "Almost done!"

Nice. Great. A perfect start to the summer.

Dinner was served in a dining room that could have hosted a state banquet. Black marble floors, a chandelier the size of a small car, a table long enough to seat twenty. And every seat was filled.

"Everybody, this is Naya!" Santana announced, dragging me in by the wrist. "My best friend, my sister from another mister. If any of you are mean to her, I will bite you."

Laughter rippled down the table. I smiled until my cheeks hurt.

"This is Dorian, head of security," she went on. "Don't let the scowl fool you, he cries at commercials. That's Elowen, our pack healer. She's basically everyone's mom. And this"

"Vespera Quinn," said the woman at the right hand of the empty head chair. "The Beta."

She stood and offered her hand.

Tall, elegant, dark hair pinned back, a charcoal suit that probably cost more than my tuition. I shook her hand and felt her fingers tremble.

She was staring at my face like she'd seen a ghost.

"Welcome to the Lopez estate, Miss Veyra," she said quietly.

"Thank you. Have we met?"

"No." Too quick. She let go and sat down. "I'm sure I'd remember."

Dorian gave me a stiff nod. Elowen's kind brown eyes flicked between us, curious. "You look flushed, dear. Fever?"

"Just the heat," I lied, for the second time in one day.

She rose halfway, took my wrist in her warm fingers, and frowned. "Your pulse is racing. That's not the heat, dear."

Before I could ask what she meant, she let go and smiled like nothing had happened.

Santana pushed me into a chair halfway down the left side. Then she leaned over and whispered, "Daddy's late. He's being extra Alpha-y today."

"Great," I whispered back.

The doors opened.

Every conversation died.

Zayden walked in like he owned the air. Charcoal jacket buttoned to the throat, crisp white collar, not a hair out of place. The man from the foyer was gone. In his place stood the Alpha of the Obsidian Crest, cold and controlled and completely unreadable.

He didn't look at me.

Not even once.

He took his seat at the head of the table and picked up his napkin, and I noticed his hand was bandaged across the knuckles. Santana frowned. "Dad, what happened to your hand?"

"Desk," he said.

That was all.

"Say hi properly, Daddy," Santana pushed.

His eyes stayed on the table. "Miss Veyra. Welcome. The east wing is yours. Stay out of the west corridor."

"Yes, Alpha," I said.

Clipped. Cold. A stranger's voice, nothing like the one that had said my name.

It stung more than it should have. I'd spent years fantasizing about that voice, and the one time it was aimed at me, it sounded like I was a stranger who'd wandered into his house.

I swallowed it down with my wine. It tasted like ash.

Dinner began. Servers poured red wine. Someone laughed about a Wall Street deal. Someone else brought up a shipping dispute in Red Hook that sounded a lot like a wolf territory quarrel. I nodded at Santana's stories and forced down bites of steak I couldn't taste.

I stared at my plate.

Then, without meaning to, I looked at him.

He was cutting his steak. Precise. Controlled. His forearms flexed beneath the tailored sleeves, and I remembered how they'd looked rolled up. The veins. The strength. I thought of those hands around my wrists, pinning me to a bed, and something low in my belly clenched so hard I gasped.

I coughed into my napkin.

"You okay?" Santana asked.

"Wine. Went down wrong."

I kept my eyes down after that. For almost a full minute.

Then his voice cut through the chatter, quiet and clipped. He was talking to Dorian about the perimeter. Just business. But the sound of it slid across my skin like silk, and I looked up again.

His throat moved when he swallowed.

That's all it was. A throat. But I stared at the strong line of it, the sharp cut of his jaw, the faint shadow of stubble, and I imagined pressing my mouth to that spot just below his ear. Tasting it. Hearing what sound he'd make.

I wanted his fist in my hair. His weight pinning me down. I wanted to be tied to his bed, stripped of every choice, and made to scream his name until the whole house heard it.

He'd growl, I thought. Low and dark and furious with himself.

And then he'd lose control.

Heat crawled up my chest. My nipples tightened against the thin fabric of my dress, and I pressed my thighs together under the table so hard it almost hurt. I was soaked. At a dinner table. Surrounded by his entire pack, his best friend's father, his daughter sitting right next to me.

This was insane.

I was completely, utterly insane.

He hadn't looked at me once. Not once. He'd made it painfully clear I didn't exist.

It shouldn't have hurt. He was Santana's father. He was supposed to ignore me. So why did it feel like a slap?

Because every nerve in my body was tuned to his.

"Naya," Santana whispered, elbowing me. "You're staring."

"I'm not."

"You're totally staring at my dad."

My blood froze.

"He's scary, I know," she said, grinning. "Everyone stares. It's the aura. Don't worry."

"Right," I breathed. "The aura."

She went back to her wine, satisfied.

But when I lifted my eyes, my heart stopped.

Zayden had stopped eating.

His fork was frozen in the air. His head was turned, just slightly, toward me. And he was watching me, watching me watch him, with eyes that had gone completely, unmistakably gold.

Not a flicker this time.

A blaze, aimed straight at me.

The crystal wineglass in his left hand cracked. A thin line shot up the stem. Red wine spilled over his bandaged fingers and onto the white tablecloth like blood.

The rest of the table kept laughing, oblivious.

Beside him, Vespera had stopped breathing. Her face was gray, her eyes locked on the crack in his glass, then on me, and there was pure terror in them.

Only Vespera. And me.

And he didn't look away.